


We Were Once Young

by marmaladeSkies



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Humor, Just kids being kids, Snowball Fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:41:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28018680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marmaladeSkies/pseuds/marmaladeSkies
Summary: The Faerghus Four play in the snow as children.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 18





	We Were Once Young

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dragoncat1991](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragoncat1991/gifts).



> Gift fic for Dragoncat, who requested “a humorous story about the Faerghus Four as kids.” Hope this works for ya!

“Let’s have a snowman contest!” Sylvain shouted as he charged into the snow blanketing the castle courtyard. It was a dense, moist snow, the sort that was great for building things but terrible to stand around in. Dimitri was surprised the servants hadn’t already started clearing it away.

“What’s that?” Dimitri asked as he followed at a more sedate pace.

The older boy was already starting to gather up snow into a pile. “We try to make the biggest snowman possible. If it doesn’t fall over before you’re done, you win!”

Ingrid ran out into the courtyard and started gathering her own snow. “You’re on!” she shouted. Dimitri and Felix looked at each other, shrugged, and started building their own. Dimitri wasn’t really competitive, not like Ingrid was, but it was still fun to see how high he could build his up.

The contest lasted a while; the snow was _too_ good for building snowmen with, and the children could make theirs tall fairly easily without having to worry about knocking it over by mistake. All they had to do was keep packing the snow down to keep it solid, and the snowman would stay up pretty well on its own.

Unfortunately, “pretty well” was not a guarantee that their creations would actually stay up, and Sylvain lost the contest first when his snowman tipped over. Dimitri stifled a giggle at the affronted look in his face; while Sylvain was ten and therefore insisted he knew a lot more than the rest of them about building snowmen, this showed that he clearly had a long way to go.

Dimitri’s didn’t last much longer, as he accidentally punched through it while trying to pat the snow down into a more solid form. Only the head came off, but that was enough for Glenn (who had inserted himself into the contest as a referee) to declare him disqualified. As for the other two...

Ingrid was certain that Felix’s shouldn’t be able to count, since he had Glenn helping him. Felix was equally certain that it _did_ count, since his brother wasn’t doing any of the building and was just holding him up so he could reach higher, and that Ingrid was just jealous that his snowman was the biggest so there!

“You have a branch sticking out of the top of yours- that doesn’t count as height!” Sylvain protested.

“It’s his hair! That counts!” Felix argued.

Glenn’s attempt to play referee was soundly ignored in the ensuing argument, and it only ended when Ingrid grabbed a chunk of snow from Felix’s snowman (much to his protest), shaped it into a rough ball, and hurled it at the younger of the brothers. It struck him in the chest and stuck there, the wet snow clinging to his cloak. He stared at it in surprise for just a moment as the snowball slowly slid down his chest, then quickly ducked down and made a snowball of his own. It barely hit, only managing to clip Ingrid in the ear, but it was enough to signal that war was on, and soon the two of them were trading snowballs back and forth with all the youthful exuberance they could manage.

Sylvain soon interrupted their spat by tossing a snowball at Ingrid, then ducked down and started making a rough fort out of his fallen snowman as the two feuding children turned on him. Dimitri quietly started making a snow fort of his own, trying to avoid attention as both Ingrid and Felix hit Sylvain with a pair of snowballs apiece. 

Sylvain laughed, ducking behind his tiny fort. “No fair ganging up!” he called as he hurried to build the walls taller.

“You deserve it; you interrupted our duel!” Felix shouted.

Dimitri was pretty sure he had a good enough fort made. “Sylvain!” he shouted. “Pact?”

Sylvain responded by smacking Felix in the face with a snowball. “Pact!”

Dimitri threw a snowball at Ingrid, and the snowball war escalated. Felix’s snowballs splatted against his fort. Ingrid’s snowballs splatted against Sylvain’s face. Dimitri managed to get a good few solid hits on Ingrid, and took a few hits himself from both her and Felix. Even so, Sylvain took the brunt of their ire.

That Dimitri and Sylvain each had a snow fort gave them a distinct advantage over the other pair, and eventually Ingrid and Felix were forced to retreat behind an apple tree. Dimitri ran out from behind his fort to follow them, ammo clutched in his arms. He didn’t get very far, and in fact only managed to get one snowball thrown, before the two of them charged directly at him with twin battle cries.

The force of their combined weights knocked him back into the snow. He managed to get a single glimpse of Ingrid’s victorious face before the girl started to lift up the front of his shirt-

Oh _no._

“Augh, no!” Dimitri shouted, trying to wriggle away. “That’s cheating! Have mercy!”

Felix looked distinctly _un_ merciful as he shoved an armful of snow under Dimitri’s shirt. Dimitri’s shriek (it was _freezing_ cold!) brought Sylvain running over to defend him, and soon all four of them were wrestling in the snow as Glenn hurried over to try to break it up.

They had to spend most of the afternoon huddled in thick blankets with cups of hot tea to warm up again, but it was well worth it.

————

“Let’s have a snowman contest!” Sylvain’s daughter shouted as she charged into the snow blanketing the castle courtyard. A small horde of other children followed in her wake, some excitedly agreeing with the proposal, and one -Ingrid’s youngest- timidly asking what a snowman contest was and how one worked.

Dimitri watched from the balcony as they played. The snowman contest was abandoned as soon as it became clear that Ingrid’s oldest was building a snow _monster,_ and soon enough a plethora of oddly shaped snow creatures began dotting the courtyard.

The more things changed, the more they stayed the same, he thought. Children would always be children, and snow would always be there to play in. Only the details differed.


End file.
